John G. Roberts, Jr.

Supreme Court of the United StatesConfirmedSeptember 29, 2005

John Roberts

Photo: White House

On September 29, 2005, the Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. as the 17th chief justice of the United States. Click here to read the testimony. Click here to see the final vote breakdown.

Testimony of Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Legal Correspondent,"In addition to the trend toward overruling precedent by stealth, the court has been able to make dramatic changes without even a modicum of drama by chipping away at our access to the courts. Be it through the doctrines of constitutional “standing” or “ripeness,” by virtually doing away with facial constitutional challenges, or by subtly shifting the burden of proof on plaintiffs – it is becoming materially harder for victims of any sort of injustice or discrimination to access the very protections this congress has enacted. ... from environmental protections to worker
protections, to civil rights legislation, Congressional guarantees of equal
justice are only as robust as a citizen’s power to march into a courtroom.
That doorway gets narrower every year."